


We'll Never Fade Away

by entropy_maximum (missjmelville)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Gen, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-07
Updated: 2013-06-07
Packaged: 2017-12-14 05:31:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/833325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missjmelville/pseuds/entropy_maximum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He's remembered as the one who showed the Righteous man how to save the world, how to stop the apocalypse.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	We'll Never Fade Away

**Author's Note:**

> Chuck-centric, unbeta'd.

Chuck sometimes wishes he could stop writing. He dreams of days when he no longer wakes from dreams as vivid as reality to a dull throbbing behind his eyes that doesn't go away until he writes. He wishes he could just stop. He tried once, after meeting Sam and Dean, the very real brothers who he'd been writing about. It only resulted in the ache getting worse, changing into a stabbing sharp pain that made his eyes water so that he could hardly see, couldn't even walk straight. He only lasted twelve hours, then he wrote. The pain disappeared.

He wants to write like he did when he was a kid, when it was just a fun hobby, making up stories and fantasy lands where no one could tease him about being scrawny or steal his comics and hide them up high where he couldn't reach. He just can't seem to find the will though, the visions demanding to be written and taking up most of his time.

Drinking is the only thing that makes it even remotely bearable, it numbs not just his body but his mind, and for a few blissful hours he is floating. He is nobody. Just Chuck. Not a prophet of the Lord or a man protected by Archangels, he's just Chuck and for that time, he's happy. In that time before passing out, the time before dreams, he's happy and it's almost enough. He wakes in a cold sweat, fingers shaking with the overwhelming compulsion to type, dull ache behind his eyes and voices, emotions, none of them his, rattling around in his head. He types because it's the only way he can have peace, if only for a moment.

Since Sam and Dean showed up it's like they opened up his mind, he's having more visions, and his fingers are getting blisters from all the typing, he barely eats and what sleep he does get is just visions, it's never restful. He's a shadow of his former self, wasting away slowly and painfully, and when he dies, he thinks it'll be good, it'll be peaceful. But then he remembers Zachariah and his cheerily voiced _We'd only bring you back to life._ and decides that maybe dying would be nice, for the first few seconds because he doesn't think it'd take long to be brought back.

And for the first time in his entire life, Chuck wishes he were never born, wishes he'd died sometime before writing the Supernatural books, wishes he'd died before he became a prophet of the lord. Writing used to be fun, it was his escape from reality and now, his writing is his reality. He wishes he took up Lacrosse when he had the chance, joined the team when the coach told him he had potential, instead he'd decided to spend his time reading in the library, alone. He'd never been much of a team player.

With literally the fate of the world on his shoulders, what he sees next will determine everything, he decides to ignore it all. He's going to enjoy his possibly, likely, last night on earth. He's on the phone when they show up, ordering hookers because it's the best he can think up on such short notice, and from there everything changes.

The house is shaking and the light is getting so bright he can hardly see, and in those first few seconds, standing side-by-side with an angel, he has his last vision. It's... he's sure it means the end of the world, the apocalypse, and he blinks his eyes, white filling his vision when there's a noise like a firecracker right by his ear and Castiel, well, Castiel just explodes. Chuck is speechless.

Once his eyes have adjusted to the sudden dark, the archangels gone their work done, he stares in shock, his kitchen is a mess, blood and other things he'd rather not think on dripping down the walls and on furniture. On him. He turns around quickly and throws up on the floor, the smell of vomit hardly noticeable against the overwhelming stench of _copperblooddecay_ and he retches pathetically, tears streaming down his face leaving almost-clean tracks down his cheeks.

He goes to wipe the tears away and just ends up smearing his face with more blood, his hands dripping with it and he swears there's fragments of bone stuck to his palm and he retches again, before wiping his hands, hurriedly and desperately on his shirt, to no avail. He only succeeds in spreading more grime and muck on the only clean spot he'd had.

His mind flashes back to his last vision and he realises it's gonna happen soon, as in like, minutes away. He wonders if he'll feel it, if he'll feel the world ending. He thinks maybe he should hide, it's possible he's a target now, a prophet would be very useful to the devil. So he grabs the nearest thing that could be used as a weapon, a plunger, and ends up hiding in his closet body shaking even though he's sweating, he thinks maybe he's in shock.

When he hears a car approaching, one he doesn't recognise, he feels like maybe this is it, his last stand. Muffled voices reach his ears and he sneaks out as quietly as he can, plunger held high, hands shaking, he creeps around the corner. The person he almost runs into scares him so much that he just swings, plunger coming down hard on their head. It takes him a moment to register that he recognises the person, two people actually, and he's so happy to see the brothers alive there and in front of him that he almost collapses with the rush of relief that leaves him dizzy and swaying.

After delivering the bad news, Castiel is dead, and freaking out about a molar in his hair, _seriously? A freakin' molar?!_ He feels calmer, more in control of his own body, more comfortable in his skin than he has been in the last twenty-four hours. And then he feels it, or more accurately, _them_ , like a shadow creeping across his skin, electric and terrifying. Then there's the whispers in his head, dark and thick and something like plunging his head in a bucket of molasses even though he's never done that, but that's what it feels like.

"I can feel them," he says and it sounds like it's coming from far away, like he's not actually there, and his eyes are wide and his breathing speeds up and he's terrified, scared out of his fucking mind because they don't feel like angels any more, they feel wrong, the feel dangerous. He's fucking terrified and all he can do is stand and stare like an idiot as Zachariah and two other angels appear in his kitchen, where Castiel exploded.

When he's alone again, always alone eventually, he knows he's being watched. He can feel them now, all the time. And it's kinda creepy, knowing the angels are watching him when he like, goes to the toilet and ... does other stuff which he doesn't think he'll be doing again until he's sure they're gone, it's too embarrassing to think about.

It isn't until after sending Becky to the Winchesters that he realises the visions have stopped, the last one, apparently, wasn't even real, was planted in his brain by the angels and he wonders if maybe he's not needed any more. There's something niggling in the back of his brain, something he's forgotten or missing but he pushes it away and goes to bed, falls asleep almost as soon as his head hits the pillow.

He wakes in the morning and it's the first time in as long as he can remember that he wakes up refreshed, no compulsion to write, no ache behind his eyes and Chuck hopes it'll last. That night he writes the end of the world and it's not as bad as he thought, the visions are gone but somehow he still knows what's going to happen. He writes and he enjoys it and when he's done, it's over, finally.

He mails the finished transcript to Bobby, he'll get it to the brother's, they'll read it and thank him and maybe they'll build him a memorial when they find out. When they call and he doesn't answer. When they visit and find him gone. He knows how it all ends and he knows he was never meant to witness it, not alive. It's surprisingly easy to lose the angels. A few sigils here and there and they can't see him, can't feel him. A spell to negate any possible resurrections. Then he's doing it, sitting in his favourite chair, bottle of whiskey in his lap, knife in one hand.

He thinks it should be hard, bleeding himself dry, but it's not. A brief flare of pain that feels like salvation and then he's drifting, swirling, like water down the drain. Before he goes, he imagines he sees Castiel smiling at him sadly, forgiving him, helping him pass. His body is long gone cold when the archangels get past the sigils, they're too late. Chuck is at peace. Finally.

_He's remembered not as the prophet, but as the man who made the way clear, the man who showed human-kind the way to salvation. He's remembered as the one who showed the Righteous man how to save the world, how to stop the apocalypse. But most of all, he's remembered as a friend to the Winchesters and their angel, a man of courage and bravery surpassing that of any soldier. He died so that the world could live._


End file.
